April ends for Anime Torah Year

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear’s final episode was frustratingly melancholy.  The show was fun but I don’t think I’ll feel compelled to watch a season 2 if it gets one.

Adachi and Shumamura episodes 9 and 10 were okay.

So I’m A Spider, So What Episode 10 was very good.

Attack On Titan season 4 episode 15 was very revealing.

During episode 9 I decided to put Tropical-Rouge! PreCure on hold.  Nothing wrong with it but I have personally started to get bored of the formula for now.

SlimeIncarnation season 2 episode 7 was very good.  The plot is truly starting to thicken now.

I decided to watch the first 4 episodes of Record of Grancrest War on Netflix, it’s pretty interesting.

I checked out episodes 16 and 17 of the HigurashiGou Dub, they were pretty good.  I think Ayu has gotten better at her Dark Rika voice and now I wish they could back and redo the scene from episode 7.

It’s been announced that the Sailor Moon Eternal films, Dubs included, will drop on Netflix on June 3rd.  So that has me excited.

Sailor Moon seasons, the Good, the Bad and the Fishy

First of all I want people to understand when I refer to certain seasons of Sailor Moon as "bad" that is in the context of my considering no episode of Sailor Moon completely without value.  I think it's worth it to eventually watch all 200 of the 90s Anime and 39 of Crystal, just for the former maybe not necessarily in order.

Even the good seasons have episodes I don't think make good first impressions, and even the bad seasons have some gems that are among my absolute favorites.  But some seasons are more of the latter then the former.

But first let me remind people of my take on how the 90s Anime compares to the Original Manga/Crystal versions of the story.  Naoko Takeuchi's version of Sailor Moon is undeniably better written, the overarching storyline is far more coherent and it lacks the plot holes and dumb contrivances that the franchise is known for thanks to the 90s Anime.  And yet without all the 90s Anime's fluff and filler, without it's further exploration of the characters, I would not be nearly as invested in these characters as I am.

When breaking down the seasons of the 90s Anime, I am perhaps more inline with conventional fandom opinion then I can usually be expected to be.  Season 1 and S are the must see great seasons, R and SuperS are the difficult to watch seasons.  While SailorStars being the season we westerners didn't get right away doesn't instill as strong a reaction either way, it's perhaps the definition of average for SM.

But when I call R one of the bad seasons, I need to qualify that.  Because The Doom Tree Saga is technically part of R in terms of branding and MAL classification.  But in both spirit and execution it really is a Coda to season 1, being the end of Junichi Sato's run as Series Director.

Which leads me to the mildly controversial take that as a complete picture Season 1 and the Doom Tree Saga are better then S.  And now I need to commit the ultimate Blasphemy one can commit in Leftist Anime Fandom and actually express some criticism of Ikuhara Kunihiko-Sama.

When people briefly mention Ikuhara's involvement with Sailor Moon as mere preamble for their deep dive Utena analysis.  They will say how he was in charge of Sailor Moon S and the R Movie Promise of The Rose.  But they will ignore how he was also series director of the Bad seasons.

I like Ikuhara's original works, Utena is a must see masterpiece but it's probably Penguindrum that personally speaks to me the most.  And in his contributions to Sailor Moon I like him as an Episode Director (under which designation I'll include the movie he directed which is the best of them and perhaps an ideal microcosm of what the 90s Sailor Moon Anime is), all his episodes are at least above average and they include a number of my absolute favorites.

But as a Series Director of something that was in fact an adaptation of someone else's artistic vision, he was the worst of the 3 the show had.  S was great in-spite of Ikuhara's series direction, it was great because it's source materiel was perhaps the Manga at it's best, because it introduced some of the most popular characters in Anime, and because it's the only season that had all of the 90s Anime's best writers working on it.  But I place it below season 1 for a reason, it does have issues, and frankly every one of them is exactly what the Series Director's job was, to keep the overall plotline from becoming a mess.  It's a Hot Mess that manages to be beautiful and moving in-spite of it's lack of coherency, but it's still a mess.

Now in terms of adapting the Manga the way Toei insisted on adapting it, the Dark Kingdom arc had an advantage over the others.  That's the one arc where even the Manga/Crystal feels like it's following an episodic Tokusatsu superhero show formula.  Every other Arc in the Manga really does get into the main storyline right away and so an adaptation meant to run weekly all year long, expanding the story without even knowing the endgame up front, will inevitably go off the rails a bit.  

Still I do think a lot of why season 1 and the Doom Tree Saga work so well is because of Sato, he also directed Hugtto Pretty Cure in 2018 proving he's still got it.  Sato is simply better suited then Ikuhara for being in charge of an episodic kid's show.  Sato also continued to return as an Episode Director or sometimes just Storyboarder after his time as Series Director ended, though not during R.  His episodes continue to be highlights though not as much as Ikuhara's.

However Takenouchi Kazuhisa was a recurring Episode Director of season 1 who left after the Doom Tree Saga, the Doom Tree Saga's finale was his last Sailor Moon episode, so he might have made a small difference.  His notable contributions to season 1 include episode 3(2 of the DiC order) Talk Radio which I'd kind of argue is where the 90s Anime found it's voice, the introduction episodes for both Mars and Jupiter, Ice Princess which is another highlight for Sailor Jupiter fans, and Fractious Friends which has proven to be a very memorable episode.  He also did Storyboards for episode 3 of Utena.

I also like to give the 90s Anime's Writers more credit then most do, but they don't much help explain the difference between the Doom Tree Saga and the rest of R.  Though Yanagawa Shigeru being seemingly the chief writer of the overall plot of the Doom Tree Saga is someone fans of that arc should take special note of, as I have, but I've still yet to watch any of his non Sailor Moon stuff since most of it hasn't been Dubbed.

The thing about R and SuperS being the "bad" seasons is that they're bad for opposite reasons.  

SuperS is the season that actually is what a lot of people cynically think every season of Sailor Moon and it's Mahou Shoujo imitators are always like.  A much larger percentage of the season is skippable, and the filler this time truly does get annoyingly repetitive.  Every other season gives us something we might call a mid-season finale at least 13 episodes in, but SuperS leaves us stuck with the Amazon Trio doing their creepy routine for over half the season's total episode count before we get anything that feels even remotely like progress.

The 90s Anime Black Moon Saga besides being an overly complicated adaptation of a Time Travel plot (so already on shaky ground at making sense).  Also does something no other season does.  In every other season each episode fits into one of 2 maybe 3 categories.  Either it's a stand alone Monster of the Week episode that tells it's own complete story, or it's something important to the overall plot, and sometimes it might manage to be both.  The Sailor Moon R version of this saga however does the only type of Filler I actually consider a problem, filler that's pretending it's not filler.  It has multiple episodes that are about the overall plot with no MOTW in sight, that tries to evoke the emotional gravitas of a game changing episode, yet nothing actually happens, none of the Antagonists are permanently or ever temporarily disposed of, and no one learns anything they didn't already know, nothing about the status quo even superficially changes.

So in both cases it's not the individual episode quality per se that is the issue.  It's what it feels like to actually go through all of it so I can finally say on MAL that I've completed Sailor Moon.  But I will still say the Black Moon Saga has more actually sub par episodes, almost any SuperS filler episode is at least fine, it's midway point finale is better then it's build up deserved, and it's final stretch of episodes are actually better then the climax of S.

Sailor Stars is again difficult for me to pass judgment on.  It feels like less of a chore to binge, and has many memorable moments, and yet besides the opening 6 episodes doesn't reach any of the prior season's highs. 

Sailor Moon Crystal has no Bad Seasons.  Even the Black Moon Saga was finally vindicated in my mind by seeing it as the Author truly intended (like how many feel about The Snyder Cut) and may be the subject of it's own post someday.  And now I'm hoping the Eternal films can do the same for the Dream Arc.

The people who hate Crystal, even if that antagonism is really only directed at season 1, are simply not Sailor Moon fans.  I don't care how many memeable jenky stills you throw onscreen in your YT video.  Story wise this is the characters and story finally being presented in dramatized form as their creator intended.  If that feels to you like a betrayal of why you like Sailor Moon, then you don't like Sailor Moon, you like Sailor Moon fan fiction.  And that's fine I in many ways ultimately like the Fan Fiction more too.  And the 90s Anime is closer to what I generally want from this Genre, but even it isn't fully there yet.

I appreciate Sailor Moon in all it's forms, from the PGSM Live Action show to the insane Last Dracul musicals.  My love for this franchise is unconditional, but not without the ability to critique it.

Fantasy stories where Royal Blood gives you Superpowers.

I find this topic interesting to analyze.

On the one hand if you're going to have genetically inherited Superpowers or Magical Affinities be a thing in your fictional setting, it actually seems far more plausible to me that they would become the ruling class rather then the X-Men based standard of making them oppressed minorities.

However on the other hand real world Hereditary Monarchies have been justified by claims that the Royal Bloodline descends from Demigods or when Christianized have some God granted miracle power to vindicate their Divine Right to Rule. So doing this in a Fantasy or Sci-Fi story can intentionally or not seem like vindication of actual Royalist beliefs.

A lot of old 19th Century Novels that don't have fantastical elements do involve lost heirs to titles of Nobility where the lost rightful heir is identified by some Heirloom or Birthmark.  I can see how it would make sense when translating those tropes into a Fantastical setting to use some sort of Super Power or Magical Ability instead.

"The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known." from The Lord of The Rings is the most directly based on the real world equivalent.  The Royal Touch associated with both French and English Kings.  And yeah the Inklings more then any other famous writers of Fantasy were Medievalists in their real world politics.  More recently the Royal Touch has been cited by Da Vinci Code supporters as evidence that the Merovingians descended from Jesus.

In Game Of Thrones and the Novels it's based on the Targaryen ablity to control Dragons is the source of their Divine Right to rule.  People who liked how the final season ended tend to paint the complainers like Lindsay Ellis as the ultimate Girl Boss Feminists who suddenly support Hereditary Monarchy when it's a Woman.  Those critics have in fact made it clear it's about the character development, and suggesting Targaryen madness is simply biological determinism does not actually disagree with Eugenics.

In Attack On Titan those with royal blood can alter memories and it seems also command Titans, or help Titan Shifters control Titans.  And indeed Krista/Historia's arc over the course of Season 2 and the first part of season 3 is the best Return of The Queen arc I've seen so far.

But I want to talk last about something more obscure.  Aldnoah Zero an Anime from 2014 I watched recently on HBOMax.  

It's a Real Robots Mecha show using a lot of tropes codified by Gundam.  But in Gundam the super powers that exist for the purpose of limiting the ability to pilot Gundams to specific people are more like Childhood's End (even calling them Newtypes seems to play on language from that book).  But in this show it's an ability the Royal Family of the Martian Empire was given by some technology of an ancient lost Martian civilization, but that they can also loan to others making them Nobles.  When The Princess does this it tends to be by Kissing them on the Lips.

So this show unlike a lot of Mecha does wind up seeming like a straight forward endorsement of Royalism.  The key to making Peace in the end is getting the good Royal on the Throne.

It also reminds me how a lot of the concepts related to Courtly Love in old Chretien de Troyes style Medieval Romances kind of resemble the modern Internet concept of Simping.  In this Anime whether you're a good guy or a bad guy isn't determined by which side of the War you're on, but whether or not you're Simping for Princess Asseylum.

Those are the four that popped into my head right away as I decided to make this post.  Feel free to comment with other examples you find interesting.

Anime Torah Year, will I actually criticize something this week?

Well I finished Aldnoah Zero on HBOMax.  It was a pretty decent Mecha show.

SlimeIncarnation episode 6 was interesting.

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear episode 11 was fun.

So I’m A Spider, So What episode 9 was good.  I wonder if the Demon Lord is also a student?

I’m also thinking about how we have an Imouto with a Big Brother complex character who has two older brothers.  Why is she fixating on the younger older brother and not the biggest brother?

Attack On Titan season 4’s 14th episode was revealing.

Tropical-Rouge! Precure episode 8.  I feel like with this Precure series what I’m most enjoying is the slice of life stuff with the main girls, that alone justifies coming back every week.  And there is plenty of cool/fun stuff in the fight sequence.  But whatever the villains do to get us from the former of those to the latter quickly becomes a complete blur.

A more conventional critic would probably see that as a problem way more than I do.  Yes it does hurt the show’s ability to ever top the classic episodic Magical Girl shows with some pretty darn memorable Generals and MOTOWS.  But I’ve already explicitly defended on this blog the position that it’s okay for the villains to sometimes be just a plot device.

And it’s also maybe kind of the intentional theme with these villains that they’re lazy.

Science Fiction is a Sub Genre of Fantasy

In the past I have been very pedantic about drawing a hard line between Fantasy and Science Fiction, especially in regards to Star Wars which I am not alone in considering Fantasy not Sci-Fi.

However my escalating indulgence in Anime over the last 5 years has increased my appreciation for how blurry the line can be.  But more importantly looking at the history of the Genre has made me realize that ALL Science Fiction is Fantasy but not all Fantasy is Science Fiction.

People Fantasize about many things, our more traditional definition of what a Fantasy story or world is comes from Fantasies about the Past.  Urban Fantasy is our fantasies about those elements of the mythic past surviving into the modern world just out of sight.  Fantasy's overlap with Horror is tied to our fantasies about what scares us.

But we also fantasize about the Future, and outer space, or alternate routes history could have taken.  We fantasize about what technology could achieve in the future as it continues to advance, or perhaps has secretly achieved already but is being kept secret by the government or other cabal of elites.  Or could have achieved long ago if certain mistakes were averted.  We also fantasize about finding things Scientists speculate could exist but that we haven't found yet.

When you look at the history of what's called Proto-Science Fiction, Sci-Fi tropes and ideas in works that predate the birth of Science Fiction as a distinct genre.  You'll notice that it's all Fantasy, the exact same works of the Ancient-Medieval past modern Fantasy authors look to for inspiration is exactly where the founders of Science Fiction drew their inspiration.  But when directly adapted today they are classified as just Fantasy not Sci-Fi.

From the Mahabharata & Ramayana, to a Second Century Greek novelist seeking to Parody the Odyssey, to the 1001 Arabian Knights to Japanese Folk Tales to 18th and 19th Century Gothic Romances. 

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is sometimes called the first Sci-Fi novel.  But the thing that surprises people reading the original book after entering it with assumptions driven by a century of Cinematic Adaptations, is just how Unscientific it actually is, the full title is referencing a Greek myth after all.  The 2nd and 3rd editions actually try to make it more Scientific, the reference to Galvanism for example was not in the original 1817 edition, the only basis in the Book for the trope of the Monster having anything to do with Electricity is a Greedo Shot First/Riddles In The Dark style retcon.  Science is only discussed at all in the book because of the Rationalism of those at Ingolstadt shutting down Victor's ideas.  Victor's actual inspirations come from late Medieval and Renaissance era Alchemists, Sorcerers and Magicians, and one of the author's inspirations may have been Conrad Dipple.

In a way this makes the development of Science Fiction not unlike the development of Science itself.  Chemistry emerged out of Alchemy, Francis Bacon arguably defined the modern "Scientific Method" but he was also an occultist, a student of John Dee.  Isaac Newton believed the mystical symbolism of the design of Solomon's Temple could somehow unlock the secrets of the Universe.

Whether or not Technology can be considered a form of Magick kind of depends on how you define Magick.  One definition used by some Occultists is that it's the manipulation of the energies that exist in nature.

That's why it makes sense that the roles played by Mages in RPGs are taken over by Scientists in more Science based adventures.  White Mages become Medics and Black Mages become Mad Scientists.

Jules Verne was also pretty open about how Genre wise most of his major works were attempts to create modern Odysseys.

Anime Torah Year's first full week

I decided to check out Aldnoah Zero, a summer 2014 show. I've seen 7 episodes as of typing this paragraph.  It’s a pretty interesting little overlooked Real Robots Mecha show.

Episode 5 of SlimeIncarnation season 2 was okay.

Episode 10 of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear was about Capitalism.

I’ve also watched the first 4 episodes of DOTA Dragon’s Blood on Netflix.  The show isn’t an Anime and doesn’t in my opinion feel like an Anime.  But it is interesting.

With episode 8 I fear Adachi and Shimamura might be starting to get boring.  It is still good at using some goofy humor to keep me from completely losing interest.  But the fact that this is adapting an ongoing Manga is really starting to show.

There are two things I want from Yuri Genre shows.  Either the couple gets together really early on, or if you want to drag it out as long as possible do it with Melodrama that is over the top and Trashy like Citrus.

So when you watch Episode 8 of So I’m A Spider, So What make sure you don’t forget to watch the after credits scene.  Definitely has me curious for next week.

I watched episodes 14 and 15 of the HigurashiGou Dub.  Mion’s Mom said “Hellmouth'' which has me thinking there’s a Buffy fan on this staff.  Over the course of them I was able to get used to Ayu as Rika, but I still can’t forgive certain writing decisions this Dub has made.

Episode 13 of Attack On Titan season 4 was intense.

I finished the first Cour of Aldnoah Zero, it was pretty good.  It’s on HBOMax for anyone who has that.

Episode 7 of Tropical-Rouge PreCure was fun.

Starting the Anime Torah Year project.

As I stated in the intro I started April 2021 with Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms which was great.  I may have to change my designation for best Anime Film of 2018, I’m definitely putting it in my top 20 or even top 10 Anime Films of the 2011-2020 Decade.

Adachi and Shimamura episode 7 was pretty decent.  Perhaps underwhelming compared to the opening episodes.

So I’m A Spider, So What episode 7 was pretty neat.  Are they implying the Teacher might also know about SpiderChan’s situation and location?

Episode 12 of the current Attack on Titan season was pretty enjoyable, it reminds me of some season 4  Battlestar Galactica.

Tropical-Rouge! PreCure episode 7 was pretty fun.

I think I’m gonna try to post these on Sundays for the foreseeable future, with the latest PreCure being usually the most recent episode I’ll have watched at the time.  So the next one will probably have more content covered.

Anime Torah Year Introduction Post

While Japan uses the Gregorian Calendar, there are also still ways in which culturally the first month of their year is April, particularly the way their School Years work.  Which as a particular type of Christian interests me for how that correlates to my understanding of the Biblical Calendar, the year begins with Spring.

So I’ve decided for my next Chronicling my Seasonal Anime experience for a year project on this blog to use that kind of year.  So this Tag of my Blog shall cover April 2021 through March 2022.  Like before there is no guarantee new posts will be made a consistently weekly schedule.

I may choose to comment on older stuff I’m watching too.  For example on April 1st before posting this I watched Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms which was from 2018 and I'm not sure when the Dub was recorded, and quickly gave it a 10 since it managed to make me Cry, it was beautiful.

Because I’m primarily a Dub viewer I will be starting this series by talking about mainly Simuldubs from the Winter 2021 season.   I made a post in March that ends with my starting the Winter Simuldub (however Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle’s Joke finally got old for me during the last Dubbed episode to come out in March).  But to briefly repeat them here those Simuldubs are.

Adachi and Shimamura

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

Attack on Titan’s "Final Season" on Toonami on Saturday Night.

So I’m A Spider, So What (which I sometimes nickname Spider-Chan or SpiderIsekai)

And the second season of That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime.

I may decide to add more.  Actually I’m probably gonna binge all of Re:Zero season 2 when all of it’s Dub is dropped.  There is stuff I liked about season 1 but I don’t think I can watch it weekly.

Wonder Egg Priority I’ve grown unsure I’ll even bother checking out, though I had labeled it one I was willing to watch Subbed once Bingeable before.  I’ll play it by ear.

I’m also following Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure subbed, but I don't know how long I’ll keep that up.  

Now to look ahead at Spring and see what I might be watching.  Unless stated otherwise I will probably only watch any of these seasonally if they get a Simuldub.  And all of this is subject to change.

MARS RED’s pilot episode’s Dub debuted the same day it aired in Japan, March 29th, that is rare.  It was a pretty enjoyable episode, but it isn’t enough to undo my 2010s Vampire Fatigue so I also dropped it.

The fact that How Not to Summon a Demon Lord got a season 2 is making me consider giving the rest of season 1 a chance.  

Similarly the SlimeIncarnation spinoff I will probably check out.

SSSS.Dynazenon I will definitely watch when a Dub is available, if I recall correctly SSSS.Gridman didn’t get a Simuldub.  But it’s also currently not on Netflix.

I’ve been killing Slimes for 300 years and Maxed out my Level or Slime300 I’m very curious about, maybe even enough to watch Subbed if necessary.

Nagatoro I’m considering giving a shot with how much buzz it has.  But it sounds like it probably isn’t my style.

To You, The Immortal has me a little curious.

Combatants Will Be Dispatched! also seems potentially interesting.

Seven Knights Revolution I’ll probably check out.

86 also has my interest.

When I started writing this introduction post MAL only listed 5 ONAs for April-May, none looked interesting to me.  In a matter of weeks that has increased.  Still none are catching my interest yet.  I wish MAL would specifically say which ones are set to be Netflix shows.

No point in even looking at the Movies since all of them will be months before I can see them.

I decided to look even further ahead at Summer.  Season 2s for DragonMaid, Hamefura and Million Lives Isekai, and also more of SlimeIncarnation season 2.

Realist Hero is I think an Isekai I’ve read some of the Manga for already.

HigurashiSotsu is set to start in late July, that one I’ll be watching Subbed.

Looking even further ahead, The Devil is a Part Timer season 2 was announced but I have no idea if it’ll be this year.  New seasons of Magia Record and A Certain Scientific Accelerator are also expected.  And the actual final season of Attack On Titan won’t air till winter 2022 and it's Dub on Toonami will probably start weeks later.

Movies I am still hoping to be able to watch within the next year include the Simuldubs for the final Heaven’s Feel film Spring Song, and both Grand Order Camelot Films.  And also the new Prisma Illya Film and both Sailor Moon Eternal Films all three of which I’m willing to watch Subbed, the Miracle Leap PreCure movie I also still haven’t found anywhere yet.  I’ll probably watch Pokemon Coko(Secrets of The Jungle), but it looks like it has the Sun And Moon/Journeys art style I don’t like.

Hopefully the coming 12 months will be better then the 13 past months.